This illustration summarises the almost 14-billion-year long history of our Universe. It shows the main events that occurred between the initial phase of the cosmos, where its properties were almost uniform and punctuated only by tiny fluctuations, to the rich variety of cosmic structure that we observe today: stars and galaxies.

The series of panels on the right side of the illustration zooms into the cosmic large-scale structure to reveal first a cluster of galaxies, then a spiral galaxy similar to our own Milky Way Galaxy, and finally, the Solar System.